Revision as of 21:04, 23 October 2007

This page is a tutorial on all of the basic, need-to-know things on Debatepedia. It will jump-start your ability to browse, edit, and engage with the Debatepedia community.

Starting your account

Go to the "log in / create account" button in the upper-right of the screen, click this, and enter your basic information. We encourage you to use your real name as your "user name", particularly if you are a debater. You will be able to use your user page as a profile and bio page, so it may be worthwhile for you to provide a real name and build your actual profile.

Learning to edit

See Help:Editing, which acts as a full guide to editing on Debatepedia.

Also see Wikipedia's tutorial on editing, which will help you learn the very basic and most important MediWiki (the software Wikipedia and Debatepedia uses) editing techniques and tools.

See below for understanding debate-page editing on Debatepedia, which is slightly different than the above.

Understanding the debate page "logic tree" structure, and how to manipulate it

Debate pages on Debatepedia are based on a unique pro/con "logic tree" structure. Debates start with a main "yes"/"no" question. The pro/"yes" and con/"no" arguments are then divided into a split screen. Subquestions help organize the pros and cons of often large debates into more chewable parts (economic, social, legal...). Subquestions are simply there for the purpose of organizing pros/cons within the larger debate or "yes"/"no" question; they are not there for opening tangential debates to the main debate/question.

What's the mission?

What's the objective with any given article?

Ok, so you may identify with the mission, but now what? What is the objective with each article on Debatepedia? The aim with every page is to produce "feature articles". These are exemplary articles on Debatepedia, that abide by Debatepedia's editing policies, and uphold a variety of other quality standards. Attempt to move the articles you edit toward "feature article" status. And, you may be rewarded with articles you've edited being featured on the main page of Debatepedia.

Personal objectives: if you edit to "feature article" standards, you will gain the trust of the community around you, and have the opportunity to apply to be a Debatepedia Steward

Communicating with other users

Browsing and navigating basics

Debatepedia's main pages can all be reached from the toolbar on the left side of the screen, from the top-right of the screen (About...), and from just below the top-right of the screen (User ID...). These are the most useful links and windows into the Debatepedia content, so you should actively use them to navigate the site. One of these links is to the navigation and browsing page. Check that out.